Generally, cooling air extracted from a compressor section of a gas turbine can cause a decrease in overall performance of the gas turbine. When the amount of extracted cooling air is decreased, an increase in the overall performance of the gas turbine can result but a reduction in the life of gas turbine components can also result.
At least one conventional gas turbine uses cooling air extracted from a compressor section to cool various hot gas path components, for instance, in a turbine section. In the conventional gas turbine, a heat exchanger using water from the plant bottoming cycle can cool the air extracted from the compressor. By initially passing the air extracted from the compressor through the heat exchanger, the heat exchanger, by way of the water from the plant bottoming cycle, can remove heat from the air before the air is transmitted to the turbine section. Use of a heat exchanger to cool the extracted compressor air can be relatively expensive due to the maintenance and operation costs of the heat exchanger and associated equipment.